If you haven’t been following 3:AM’s interview series, you should. The Brian Leiter interview was one of the most cogent assessments of philosophy I’ve read in years, and the recent Eric Schwitzgebel interview is on par. Both reward close reading and deserve extended comment, but I want to touch briefly on Schwitzgebel’s assessment of the [...]
Tags:Brian Leiter·commonsense·crazyism·Emerson·Eric Schwitzgebel·evolved mind·metaphysics·Nietzsche
A place for everything and everything in its place. This is not just a mantra for those with obsessive tendencies. It also describes the drive that some have toward a system: a unified theory of everything.
Before the Enlightenment, there was no need for such a theory. God served this purpose and everything was explained by [...]
Tags:Darwinian monism·David Sloan Wilson·dualism·EO Wilson·Ernst Haeckel·Hegel·Kant·metaphysics·metatheory·monism·Neil deGrasse Tyson·Nietzsche·Niles Holt·science as religion·systematization·theory of everything·unified theory
Over at Slate, Ron Rosenbaum reads Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 through the lens of theodicy.
Like many who view metaphysicians with a combination of bemusement and horror, Heller finds the never-ending rationalizations and justifications absurd. No matter how impressive the intellectual gymnastics, theodicy can’t make sense of that which can’t make sense.
Rosenbaum is on to something here, [...]
Tags:absurd·Catch-22·Joseph Heller·metaphysics·Ron Rosenbaum·theodicy
No stranger to the angst arising from the meta-and-physical dichotomy of sacred/profane, the inimitable Christopher Hitchens recently evaluated similar sorts of tensions in the life of India’s hagiographic hero. Whilst reviewing Joseph Lelyveld’s new book, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India, Hitchens pours cold pragmatic water on the man and his myths.
Despite [...]
Tags:caste·Christopher Hitchens·commonsense dualism·Dalit·David Pizarro·Descartes·dualism·false binary·false dichotomy·Great Soul·Hindu·Homer's Soul·India·Joseph Lelyveld·Mahatma Gandhi·metaphysics·mind-body·monism·Paul Bloom·soul beliefs·The Simpsons·untouchables·Vedic·Yoga
In a rare moment of clarity, Immanuel Kant penned these unforgettable words:
Time was, when she (Metaphysics) was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her object-matter, this title of honor. Now, it is the fashion of [...]
Tags:agenda·empiricism·evolution of religion·Hume·Jack Templeton·John Templeton·John Templeton Foundation·Kant·metaphysics·research funding·research grants·Sunny Bains·Templeton Foundation
Several months ago I became aware of the “Evolution of Religion” project, which maintains a website here. I did not find it particularly interesting because it was immediately apparent that the project was designed to prove a particular point. We need look no further than the project’s subtitle to ascertain the a priori commitment that [...]
Tags:a priori assumptions·agenda·atheism·benefits·bias·confirmation bias·conflict of interest·costs·evolution of religion·Evolution of Religion Project·John Templeton Foundation·maladaptive·metaphysics·methodology·The Adaptive Logic of Religious Beliefs and Behaviour
In evolutionary biology, few issues have caused more debate than altruism or what appears to be altruism. It is generally accepted that selection operates on individual organisms and that these organisms are selfishly interested in their own survival and reproduction. Another way of stating this is that individual organisms are interested solely in passing along [...]
Tags:altruism·archetypal·Carl Jung·cooperation·coyote·culture hero·David Sloan Wilson·E.O. Wilson·Elliot Sober·Franz Boas·George Price·George Williams·group level selection·inclusive fitness·Jerry Coyne·John Maynard Smith·Kantian·kin selection·kindness·Mac Linscott Ricketts·metaphysics·Michael Carroll·multilevel selection·mythology·Native Americans·Oren Harman·Paul Radin·reciprocal altruism·Richard Dawkins·Robert Trivers·selfish genes·selfishness·The Price of Altruism·Trickster·unit of selection·William Hamilton
Over at Slate Matt Feeney explores the connection, if any, between the Arizona shooter’s nihilism and admiration for Nietzsche. Along the way, Matt sparks the major works:
In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche’s first work, it’s the celebration of anarchic and sexually with-it Dionysus over boring Apollo, who’s like the Greek god of algebra or something. [...]
Tags:Arizona shooting·Gabrielle Giffords·Jared Loughner·Matt Feeney·metaphysics·Nietzsche·nihilism
Over at The Atlantic, Andrew Bacevich has penned an incisive piece on the American military-industrial complex and the metaphysic required to sustain it. As is true of the metaphysics that sustain most “world religions,” this one is grounded in fear:
This national-security state derived its raison d’être from — and vigorously promoted a belief in — [...]
Tags:amygdala·Andrew Bacevich·avoidance·C. Wright Mills·control·false consciousness·fear·habit·hegemony·invisible·Jean Comaroff·John Comaroff·metaphysics·military metaphysics·military-industrial complex·nationalism·Of Revelation and Revolution·phobia·The Power Elite·vertebrate evolution·world religions
Several months ago, many of us were shocked when it appeared that Jurgen Habermas, one of the world’s leading philosophers and social theorists, set up a Twitter account and opened with this tweet: “It’s true that the internet has reactivated the grass-roots of an egalitarian public sphere of writers and readers.” Alas, it was a [...]
Tags:communication·Durkheim·Eduardo Mendieta·emancipation·ethics·Freud·Habermas and Religion·Jurgen Habermas·metaphysics·morals·primates·rationalization·religious grammar·religious syntax·The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere·The Theory of Communicative Action·Twitter·Weber
